Gold Ship

Gold Ship is a Japanese Thoroughbred racehorse. In a racing career which began in July 2011, he ran twenty-eight times and won thirteen races. As a two-year-old in 2011, he won his two of his four races. In 2012, he won the Satsuki Shō and the Kikuka Shō, the first and third legs of the Japanese Triple Crown. In December, he defeated a strong field in the weight-for-age invitational Arima Kinen, which led to his being rated the best three-year-old racehorse in the world by some authorities. As a four-year-old, he ran disappointingly in the Tennō Shō but returned to form to win the Takarazuka Kinen. As a five-year-old, Gold Ship became the first horse to record a second victory in the Takarazuka Kinen and in 2015 he added a win in the Tennō Shō. He was known for his unpredictable temperament, with major wins being interspersed with inexplicably poor efforts. Background Gold Ship is a light-coloured grey horse bred in Japan by his owner Eiichi Kobayashi. His sire, Stay Gold, a son of the thirteen-time Leading sire in Japan Sunday Silence, was a successful international performer, winning the Dubai Sheema Classic and the Hong Kong Vase. Standing at stud at the Big Red Farm in Hokkaido, he produced numerous important winners including Dream Journey, Orfevre, and Nakayama Festa. Gold Ship's dam, Point Flag, from whom he inherited his grey coat, was a daughter of the Hall of Fame inductee Mejiro McQueen. Racing career 2011: two-year-old season Gold Ship began his racing career in Hokkaido by winning a maiden race at Hakodate Racecourse on 9 July and followed up with a win in the nine-furlong Cosmos Stakes at Sapporo Racecourse on 10 September. He was then moved up to Group Three class to contest the Sapporo Stakes over the same course and distance on 1 October. He started at odds of 7/2 and finished second, half a length behind the winner, Grandezza. On his only other start of the season, he finished second to Adam's Peak in the Group Three Radio Nikkei Hai Nisai Stakes over ten furlongs at Hanshin Racecourse on 24 December.